Amy Beach, Passionate Victorian

The Life and Work of an American Composer, 1867-1944

Adrienne Fried Block

"At last! A definitive study-in-the-round of composer Amy Beach, who grew up in a time that dictated abandonment of her maiden name (Amy Cheney) and use of her husband's (as Mrs. H.H.A. Beach). Block's enthusiastic, comprehensive, crystalline, and impeccably documented book will finally put to rest the misogynist image of 'Mrs. Ha-Ha Beach' as a Bostonian lady not to be taken seriously as a creative artist and virtuoso pianist. Confirming Beach's prodigious musical gifts, this biography--an informed and revelatory feminist study--puts in high relief the courage and brio of a Victorian woman who, having married in her teens a patrician physician more than twice her age, made a go of it, here and abroad, in the world of professional music. This generous book appears fortuitously at a time when Beach's music, for long a victim of the anti-Romantic bias of American musical modernism, is coming to be recognized for its integrity and expressive range."--H. Wiley Hitchcock, Distinguished Professor of Music Emeritus, City University of New York

Amy Beach, Passionate Victorian

The Life and Work of an American Composer, 1867-1944

Adrienne Fried Block

Description

Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (1867-1944), the most widely performed composer of her generation, was the first American woman to succeed as a creator of large-scale art music. Her "Gaelic" Symphony, given its premiere by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1896, was the first work of its kind by an American woman to be performed by an American orchestra. Almost all of her more than 300 works were published soon after they were composed and performed, and today her music is finding new advocates and audiences for its energy, intensity, and sheer beauty. Yet, until now, no full-length critical biography of Beach's life or comprehensive critical overview of her music existed. This biography admirably fills that gap, fully examining the connections between Beach's life and work in light of social currents and dominant ideologies.

Born into a musical family in Victorian times, Amy Beach started composing as a child of four and was equally gifted as a pianist. Her talent was recognized early by Boston's leading musicians, who gave her unqualified support. Although Beach believed that the life of a professional musician was the only life for her, her parents had raised her for marriage and a career of amateur music-making. Her response to this parental (and later spousal) opposition was to find creative ways of reaching her goal without direct confrontation. Discouraged from a full-scale concert career, she instead found her métier in composition.

Success as a composer of art songs came early for Beach: indeed, her songs outsold those of her contemporaries. Nevertheless, she was determined to separate her work from the genteel parlor music women were writing in her day by creating large-scale works--a Mass, a symphony, and chamber music--that challenged the accepted notion that women were incapable of creating high art. She won the respect of colleagues and the allegiance of audiences. Many who praised her work, however, considered her an exception among women. Beach's reaction to this was to join with other women composers of serious music by promoting their works along with her own.

Adrienne Fried Block has written a biography that takes full account of issues of gender and musical modernism, considering Beach in the contexts of her time and of her composer contemporaries, both male and female. Amy Beach,Passionate Victorian will be of great interest to students and scholars of American music, and to music lovers in general.

Amy Beach, Passionate Victorian

The Life and Work of an American Composer, 1867-1944

Adrienne Fried Block

Table of Contents

1. A Prodigy's New England Upbringing2. The Cheneys and the Marcys3. A Prodigy Despite Her Mother4. The Making of a Composer: I5. Two Ways of Looking at a Marriage6. The Making of a Composer: II7. Becoming Mistress of Her Craft8. Reaching Out to the World9. "One of the Boys"10. Amy Beach's Boston11. The Composer at the Keyboard: Beach Plays Beach12. "A Veritable Autobiography"?: The Piano Concerto13. The Composer's Workshop14. Choral Music15. The Chambered Nautilus16. Europe and a New Life17. "Lion of the Hour"18. My Old New Hampshire House19. At the MacDowell Colony: "Solitude in Silence"20. Caring21. A Fascinating New York Life22. Beach the Modernist?23. Reckonings24. Harvest TimePostlude: The LegacyAppendix: Catalog of WorksMusic's Ten Commandments as Given for Young Composers

Amy Beach, Passionate Victorian

The Life and Work of an American Composer, 1867-1944

Adrienne Fried Block

Author Information

Adrienne Fried Block has long been active as a speaker and writer on women and music. Women in American Music: A Bibliography of Music and Literature (1979), which she co-edited and compiled, remains a standard reference for the topic. She holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from City University of New York, in which she has taught and where she is currently Co-Director of the Project for the Study of Women in Music.

Amy Beach, Passionate Victorian

The Life and Work of an American Composer, 1867-1944

Adrienne Fried Block

Reviews and Awards

Winner of the 1998 ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award

"Block offers by far the most detailed and thoroughly researched account of Amy Beach's like and career to date. A chronologically structured narrative, the book draws on a wide range of materials, including books, theses, articles, letters, diaries, scrapbooks, interviews, and musical manuscripts, and contains a catalog of works and a helpful index." Journal of the American Musicological Society.

"[A] consistently interesting biography of America's first notable female composer....Fascinating and useful....If interest in Beach's music continues to grow as rapidly as it has in the last few years, there will be time and opportunity to assess it, and Block's study will be a valuable aid in making a sound assessment possible."--The New York Times Book Review

"In her thoroughly researched and eminently readable study, Ms. Block presents Beach as not merely a victim of male chauvinism but also a many-sided historical figure: a dutiful daughter and wife who happened to be aflame with musical ideas and found ways to let people know it."--David Wright, The New York Times

"Block has done a great service by providing the first full-length critical biography of this talented, underappreciated composer....Pitched to the lay reader, her book includes 22 music examples accompanied by simple, illuminating analyses. An important work not only for general collections and music libraries but also for women's studies collections; highly recommended."--Library Journal

"'Passion' is at the core of this biography. An image of starched lace collars has encased Amy Beach. But Adrienne Fried Block tosses it aside to reveal a woman of extraordinary talent and rigorous discipline. Thoroughly researched and absorbingly told, this book represents a landmark in gaining a balanced portrait of American musical history."--Carol J. Oja, Margaret and David Bottoms Professor of Music and American Studies, College of William and Mary

"From child prodigy to queen of American 'woman composers'; demeaned symbol of the genteel tradition; rediscovered heroine for musical feminists; and now--the most widely performed and celebrated composer of the late nineteenth century New England school: Amy Beach richly deserves the distinguished and compelling biography Adrienne Fried Block has given us. Perhaps taking her cue from Beach's musical personality, the author has written a passionate, scrupulously crafted biography of an important American musical pioneer."--Judith Tick, Northeastern University, author of Ruth Crawford Seeger: A Composer's Search for American Music